


Promise Me

by sofithethird



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Daisira, Developing Relationship, F/F, First Kiss, Flashbacks, Hurt No Comfort, post 158
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-07 08:48:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21716596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sofithethird/pseuds/sofithethird
Summary: Basira has a promise to keep.
Relationships: Basira Hussain/Alice "Daisy" Tonner
Comments: 8
Kudos: 19





	Promise Me

It’s ringing in her head. “When this is over you need to find me and kill me. Promise me.”

Basira stumbles out the front door of the Magnus Institute like her feet have a mind of their own and must carry her onward, even when she has no idea where she is going. It was never supposed to end like this. And yet, maybe it always was.

The world around her feels as though she is separated from it by thick glass, sounds muffled as though underwater. Her vision blurs around the edges and she slumps on the marble front steps of the Institute, struggling to maintain her grip on reality past the ringing in her ears. She grips the gun in her hand.

_She’s thinking about Daisy. An angled, narrow face. Large, intelligent eyes that moved fast and were always sizing people up, a little like they were prey. A pointed grin that was rare, and a sincere smile that was even rarer. She was a woman that appeared to be made of sharp edges and yet… _

_She’s thinking about the day Daisy found her on the floor in her office. Basira’s first year on the job after signing her Section 31 had been the hardest of her life and when she found herself doing paperwork to erase yet another horrific tragedy in the eyes of the law, she had felt something within herself break. She had cried until she felt as though she could not tell where she stopped and the floor of her office began until she felt firm arms gripping hers, a usually rough voice speaking softly. Daisy held her there on the floor beneath her desk until she stopped shaking. She had helped Basira back up into her chair. She had taken the stack of paperwork off the desk and that was the last Basira had heard about it. Daisy had never brought it back up and Basira had never been more grateful. _

The emergency responders approach cautiously as if they are afraid. Down the block is a firetruck, multiple ambulances, cop cars. The sirens are deafening and silent all at once. There’s still screaming from inside and Basira watches numbly as she sees her coworkers go by on stretchers, EMTs moving fast to help them up into the ambulances. There’s blood pooling across the marble steps around her and she can smell the fear and the dying.

A cop approaches her but when she lifts her head and he sees her face, she sees the second that he recognizes her. He knows it’s best to leave her alone and he moves along. She shakes her head in an attempt to clear the overwhelming urge to scream into the sky. She gets to her feet. She’s made a promise and she intends to keep it.

_She’s thinking about that first night they sat in the Archive. Basira was at her new desk, staring at her employment contract. This was it, she thought. What in the hell had she done? She’d heard footsteps behind her and turned around, already knowing it would be Daisy. She remembered how tired she had looked, eyes dull and short hair rumpled. Her jaw was clenched and angry but she managed a smile. It made Basira angry in a way she couldn’t explain. _

_She’s thinking about how she wanted to yell. “How could you? How could you ever have believed that your freedom was an even trade to save my life? We’d be better off dead, away from all of this.” But instead, she was silent. Daisy had said, “you know I’d never let him kill you. It’ll be me before you, every time.” And Basira tried, but could no longer hold her anger, and it was slipping away like silk pulled through her fingers._

_ She’s thinking about staring into those eyes, so deep, wondering what the hell Daisy was thinking. Then Basira had been looking down at the sharp curve of Daisy’s lips, suddenly thinking about what it would feel like to kiss them, to feel their bodies pressed together in the way she’d been trying not to think about. She had pulled her eyes away. She knew that there wasn’t time, they weren’t safe here. But she thought she’d known that the only way out was through. _

Basira feels her senses coming back; her vision clearing, ears sharpening. She’s not in the habit of breaking promises to the people she loves. Not even promises like this, not even when she feels her heart breaking every time she takes a step, takes a breath.

She doesn’t know where she’s going and then all of a sudden, she does. There are spots of blood dotted along the sidewalk in a trail that leads away from the Institute in a strange, lopsided pattern. Somewhere in that direction, she hears screaming and more sirens, distant but approaching. Basira begins to run.

Around a corner, and then she’s face to face with just another horror to add to the tally of the day. An old restaurant down the street has been completely destroyed, large front windows shattered and broken glass glimmering in the street. Unmoving bodies lay bloodied and crumpled across overturned chairs and tables and splayed on the sidewalks. Basira tries not to let the dread this raises in her bubble to the surface. What she sees now is less a murder spree and more a path to the ultimate culprit.

_She’s thinking about long days in the Institute, especially in the days leading up to the Unknowing when they weren’t getting much sleep. Most days, they were all sleeping in the Archive, if they could sleep at all. She didn’t like thinking about all of the things that they had been through. And she didn’t like thinking about all the things that they had done. _

_She’s thinking about that one night. The night that she had found Daisy curled in the storage room, shaking in a fitful sleep. Basira had gone to fetch a blanket and brought it back to at least cover her up. She felt helpless, watching Daisy’s rapid breathing, her sleeping panic. She’d stayed with her all that night to keep an eye out, desperately wishing there was something she could do. _

_She’s thinking about how alone she had felt then. Her friendships and even acquaintances dissolving around her. And yet Basira found she had never felt more at home than ever when she was with Daisy. It was the one thing that felt easy, natural. Right. They’d always been good partners. Daisy had always done right by her, even if it had gone further than they ever imagined it would. _

_She’s thinking about Daisy waking up, seeing her there. “Something terrible is going to happen,” Daisy said with certainty. Basira could feel the fear in her echoing in that tiny room. They collided clumsily in the dim light, holding each other tightly in tangling arms. They breathed, quiet, in sync. _

Basira carries on through the London streets. She is following a rampage, a path of blood and destruction and death. The thing that had once been Daisy is loose in the city, the wild violence of the Hunt taken to a new extreme. Basira had never seen anything as uncontrolled and savage as this. She passes people crying, wailing in the streets in horror. She passes bodies mangled and motionless. She passes buildings destroyed in ways she knew were more than human.

She comes to a halt in front of a tall apartment building, paint flaking, quietly familiar. The door is torn from its hinges. She steps inside. She knows where she was going then, up the creaking central stairs past doors to flats of strangers. She pauses at the third-floor landing, steeling herself. In the hallway that she knows well, Daisy’s hallway, the way she knew would take her to Daisy’s old flat that had been hers, once upon a time. She’d been here before, long ago, when they were still with the police, and they’d poured over case files and drank black coffee late into the night. She’d been here before, not so long ago, when they’d come away from the Archives and spent that night… No. She couldn’t think about that now. Instead, fear rising in her, she finishes her journey to the flat at the end of the hall. Her fingers tighten on the gun at her side. And she pushes open the door.

_She’s thinking about that day. That day Daisy came back out of the coffin. About the months she spent in agony, throwing herself into work, letting herself be cold, numb. About Daisy’s quiet “hi”, and how she looked so small, so delicate, but so alive. About throwing her arms around her but trying to be gentle, like Daisy might break or disappear from her arms. _

_She’s thinking about taking Daisy back to her flat, that simple and neat space left abandoned for so long. Basira had kept up the rent payments. Basira had cooked dinner and they’d eaten together and they had just talked for hours, everything from the time they’d spent away spilling into the room. Daisy wasn’t tired. She said she’d been idle long enough, and they talked long into the night. _

_She’s thinking about the way she felt seeing Daisy in front of her again, after so long, feeling all the grief within her begin to shift, to dissolve. Feeling the love she had suppressed begin to bubble, once again, to the surface. And she couldn’t take it anymore. “Daisy, I thought you were gone. Forever. And it almost killed me. I can’t have you back and just keep not telling you that I’m in love with you.” And once she’d said it, it sat there between them for a breath, before Daisy was touching her shirt and pulling her closer. _

_She’s thinking about that kiss at the kitchen table and all the ones after that, their mouths colliding in a culmination of unspoken love. The way they had fallen into each other, breathing and laughing just a little bit at how long this had taken and how right it was. The way they held each other on the kitchen floor, bodies intertwined. “You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this” Daisy breathed. Her hands were on the buttons of her shirt. “I think… I think I do,” was all Basira could manage. _

Basira steps into Daisy’s flat. Seeing the dining table on its side sent a sharp pang through her. She knows that this entity no longer held the Daisy she knew, the Daisy she loved. “It’s me. I’m here,” she calls into the rooms. Stepping further inside, she follows the sound of growling, labored breathing into the kitchen.

And there she is. What had once been Daisy now stands at least two heads taller than Basira, torn somewhere between woman and beast. Massive fangs and extended claws were covered in blood and torn pieces of flesh, cloth, stone, and wood. And yet, she does not move to attack Basira, instead watching her intently. Her eyes are no longer familiar, gigantic and yellow with sharply angled pupils.

“I’m sorry”, Basira says. She feels her throat constricting, pain in her chest, tears in her eyes. What was before her was not Daisy, but it was also no longer a danger. Whatever rampage the Hunt had induced was over and it had revealed the truth. Below the fearsome exterior, in her final days, Daisy had been weak, run ragged. This beast was no exception, looking emaciated and depleted. The ragged breathing is the only sound that passes between them.

Basira reaches for the gun at her hip with shaking hands and raises it carefully, taking aim. The thing that is no longer Daisy closes her eyes. Basira shoots once, twice, three times, and then keeps going until she has unloaded every bullet in her gun. All is still.

She kneels down beside the woman she loves, already shrinking in her hands, the markings of her transformation disappearing. In her arms is Daisy’s body, small and only human, riddled with bullet wounds. Basira does not hold out hope for any final words as she cries.

“I did it,” she says, gasping for air between gentle sobs. “I kept my promise, Daisy. I love you so much. More than you could ever know. So much that I couldn’t leave you like that. And I’ll never be able to give you the end you deserved.”

She weeps in the kitchen and she knows. She knows that Daisy is gone, and she is still here because of it. She knows there is still work to be done. “Promise me” she whispers to herself. “Promise me you’ll never forget.” Basira wobbles to her feet and heads to the door, drenched in blood and empty to the core.


End file.
